RENDER UNTO CAESAR:

How well are hard-liners running Tehran?: Once touted as a model for what Iran's conservatives can do, the city council loses its luster of efficiency. (Scott Peterson, 4/11/05, The Christian Science Monitor)

The city engineer leans over the map of Tehran, pointing to a segment of freeway to the northeast - the strip of concrete where he says he experienced an unlikely political epiphany.

Two years ago, Iranian hard-liners had just taken control of the city council, promising to turn Tehran into a "model Islamic city." [...]

"Immediately after [hard-liners] came, there was progress, suddenly there were no dead-ends," the engineer recalls. "But this new group overemphasized ideological credentials in projects. When there is a push to finish a project for a big revolutionary anniversary, it gets done," he adds, folding the Tehran map. "Otherwise, there are problems."

The result, say critics and supporters, is more traffic and pollution in a city of some eight million people. "The city council is a model of working without tension, but people expect more than no tension - the council needs brilliant works, a brilliant plan," says Amir Mohebian, political editor of the conservative newspaper, Resalat. He adds that more important than revolutionary ideals "are good education, good money to solve problems, and good programs."

Dismissed by critics as fundamentalists incapable of running a modern city, the council was elected in a February 2003 vote that saw only a 12 percent turnout. Iran's reformist majority, disillusioned with the failure of their champion President Mohamad Khatami, did not turn out to vote.

Conservatives say that the next step in regaining popular control of government came in February 2004, when conservatives - after more than 2,500 reform-minded candidates were barred from running - won parliamentary elections. They hope to complete the triple crown by winning the presidential election coming up in June.

But that trajectory has not been trouble free. Already hard-line efforts by parliament to separate men and women on university campuses, and impose an even stricter dress code, have been rebuffed by the public.

"There is a faction in Iran - call them the Taliban - whose cultural view is closed, who do not believe in freedom of expression or participation," says Mostafa Tajzadeh, a Khatami adviser. "If they thought this [city council] was doing well, their first presidential candidate would be [mayor] Ahmadinejad, but he is fourth."

Mr. Tajzadeh notes that the hard- liners promised to repair all the streets in 45 days, "but never in Tehran's history has it been this bad." He adds, "Our society and our people do not believe they can solve the big issues of the country."

There's no reason clerics would be any better than comrades at imposing an idealized vision on an imperfect political society.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 10, 2005 6:31 PM